10 Lbs Food Grade DE

We had a bedbug problem and I'm writing this review to help other people who might have the same problem. There is a great, earlier review of successfully using DE to get rid of bedbugs. I agree 100% with the strategy of putting DE down everywhere they could possibly be hiding and waiting them out for at least a few months. Yes, your bedroom will look awful with white powder all along the baseboards but it is, obviously, worth it. DE is inexpensive and non-toxic, which makes it better than any other application option.Note: we also purchased a steamer to try to kill the bedbugs. This was a very expensive option and I really don’t know how well it worked. I once steamed my bed, bed frame, floor, baseboard, everything, put clean sheets on the bed and woke up with new bed bug bites the next morning. So, no, from my perspective the steamer didn’t work.In addition to the great suggestions made by an earlier reviewing using DE, I also want to suggest putting DE across your bedroom's door threshold at the floor. Any bugs that crawl from other rooms will have to walk through DE and that will kill them. We did that early on when we were desperate to stop the problem as quickly as possible. A few months in, and no new signs of bedbugs, we cautiously vacuumed up the DE on the thresholds. In the meantime, I had put DE behind all outlet covers just to catch any that might be coming up through the walls. (Yes horrifying to imagine but apparently that's what they will do to find you sleeping soundly in your bed in the middle of the night).2nd Tip: We have a "four post" bed. This means that there are only a few places where our bed touches the floor (at the four corners of the frame and a couple of supports under the mattress). After awhile, I realized that if I put DE just at the posts, it would force any meal-seeking bedbug to walk through the DE to get to us. This idea evolved into finding sturdy plastic cups to put the DE in (and NOT bed bug traps because they are either too flimsy or too shallow, and potentially unnecessary if my theory works. Plus, bedbug traps are really expensive. I picked up my plastic cups from the dollar store). I put about an inch of DE in the bottom of the cup and picked up the bedframe and put the bed leg into the cup. Voila! Instant bedbug killing machine! I am the “bait”, the bed legs are the "on ramp", and the DE is the poison on their way to the bait. Having confidence in this approach, and not seeing new signs of bedbugs, I vacuumed up the rest of the DE in the room and only had the cups full of DE at the bed posts.I also got into the habit of washing all the bedding on the hottest, longest wash cycle and the hottest dry cycle for at least 40 minutes on high. This DID work, or so it seemed. The highest heat from the dryer is supposed to kill the bugs and their eggs. Twice I made the bed after washing the linens this way, walked out of the room, walked back in and found a single solitary bedbug on top of the bedding (apparently crawled out from the seams or someplace) wiggling in the clutches of death. That was very satisfying, as I think you can imagine. By the way, the heat in the dryer has to be a certain temperature. I put a thermostat in with my bedding to test the dryer and it got hot enough. This was a regular residential grade dryer. If you want to be sure your dryer gets hot enough, you may want to do a search on the internet for this temperature (I forget what it is) and then test your dryer similarly. Nothing beats the peace of mind knowing the dryer got hot enough to kill those things!Another tip: use all white bedding so you can see the signs of bedbugs. Bedbugs leave tell-tale stains on bedding that look like dots made from a felt-tip marker. We usually found those marks at the corner of the bottom fitted sheets, on the underside that touched the mattress. The marks were almost always near the top of the bed, closest to where our heads are. It is very hard to get these stains out of sheets, unfortunately. That caused me to take photos of the stains so I could compare them with future inspections. By looking at the photos from a week earlier, or a few weeks earlier, I could see whether there were any new stains. As you can see, this was an IMPORTANT part of monitoring whether we had gotten rid of the bedbugs.After applying DE, you may want to leave the room for the rest of the day for the dust to settle so you’re not breathing it in. I found the dust mildly irritating but nothing more than that.And, we absolutely needed to cover the mattress, the box spring and the pillows with bedbug proof covers. We bought the SafeRest brand it has worked really well.After all that, you just have to wait them out (prepare for a few months, at least because of their life cycle and the need to be absolutely sure the problem is gone). Those horrifying bugs will die a slow and awful death due to walking through DE. You will have only spent a few dollars –although it takes a lot of work and time – but hopefully this approach will work for you too.GOOD LUCK!

Great product. EXCELLENT for getting rid of fire ants (within 24-48 hours our fire ant hills were dusty ghost towns), and any bug with an exoskeleton. I was skeptical, because I grew up in an apartment building where nothing got rid of those hardcore apartment roaches no matter what we used, no matter how clean we were, and of course, all of it was toxic. Road-tested this stuff at a place with waterbugs (UGH - but this is the South) and it WORKED - we've been told there hasn't been one since we put the stuff down which has been about 8 months ago without re-treating. Much like the old-school boric acid, it is powdery; it sticks to them, then they bring it back their nest/den/whatever and wipes all of them out. The best part is that this is a natural product, so the insects supposedly cannot build an immunity to it, and it is safe around children and animals. I purchased the Food Grade D.E. so I could use it to de-worm the hens, the dogs, and for me to use in a morning tonic. I have felt an overall difference in my health, hair and nails for the better. Please be sure to purchase the Food Grade D.E. - there is a version for pest control that you should not ingest or give to your animals. Great value, a little goes a long way - I'm still on my first bag. Just remember to use a mask (I slack on that sometimes, but it is important). I recommend this stuff to anyone who will listen...repeatedly.I do recommend that you get a container for it, because it is a powder, and it can get messy since it comes in a bag. One of those plastic charcoal bag holders or a all-purpose bucket with lid would work (just put the whole bag in), and light-duty dust mask(s) nearby/attached. There is an accordion-like applicator that is also available - I recommend that or something similar for areas you are treating for ants, roaches or spiders. Having a powdery substance around your baseboards, doors or windows may not be the sexiest look, but if you have made the decisions that you'd rather be bug -free than sexy...it's worth it.